Anacostia Park — Attraction in Washington

How Conscious Can A Fish Be? - YouTube #RyujiChua

“We’re going to examine evidence on whether or not fish have consciousness, intelligence, the capacity to suffer, and make a case for how fish are criminally underrated.

Like us, fish can also have a keen sense of hearing, smell, taste, and touch and in fact, there are many examples of their sense being even sharper than ours! Atlantic cods can hear frequencies 20 times lower than the lowest frequencies we can hear. Salmon can detect a smell that’s been diluted to a concentration of one part to 80 million. Catfish can have 100 times more tastebuds than humans.

But should we be surprised by this? Looking back in time, it was 400 million years ago that our evolutionary ancestors first crawled out of the ocean. Before then life had been thriving almost exclusively underwater. 400,000,000 BC 140 million years before that, an era called the Cambrian Explosion started and fossil records like these indicate that it’s at this time that animals went from looking like this and doing nothing- to looking like this and doing stuff like crawling, swimming, and hunting each other. It’s then that eyes, symmetrical body designs, nervous systems, and muscles- the features that still define animal bodies to this day including our own, came to be.

It’s also then that the seeds of consciousness were first planted in the animal body. Fish, who appeared shortly after, swam in the ocean for hundreds of millions of years before humans even existed. Far from not being conscious, they are the ones we inherited consciousness from!!

The theory of evolution uncovers that traits that are better suited to help an animal survive and reproduce in their environment will get passed down through generations. But that’s not just limited to physical traits! Behavioral traits, personality, and intelligence all also play a role in helping an animal successfully survive and reproduce- and also to evolve and develop over time. The ocean is a harsh environment, and fish have to solve problems and deal with strangers every single day. It pays to be smart down there. While most fish don’t display signs of intelligence that are as easily relatable to us as archerfish or bluestreak wrasses, that doesn’t mean they’re stupid or don’t think about stuff.

As primatologist and ethologist Frans De Wall wrote in one of his many books about animal intelligence, “We obviously attach immense importance to abstract thoughts and language, but in the larger scheme of things this is only one way to face the problem of survival”. So much like we have learned to pack massive computing power in tiny computer chips, nature over millions of years has found a way to pack massive brainpower in tiny tiny brains!!

Pain: (TR: Animal Abuse) One method to scientifically test whether or not fish feel pain might be the following: Step One: do something that would hurt the fish if they did feel pain, like inject them with acid, shock them with electricity, or clip off a part of their fin. Step Two: observe their behavior or physiology to see if they seem to be suffering.

For example, in this 2003 study, Lynne Sneddon, a researcher who specializes in aquatic animal biology, injected the lips of rainbow trouts with acetic acid and observed that it results in them rocking back and forth and rubbing their lips against the tank, and concluded that they must be experiencing pain.

“To paraphrase Jonathan Balcombe, ethologist and author of the book about the inner living of fish, ‘saying that fish can’t feel pain because they lack a cortex is like saying that humans can’t swim because we lack fins’”.

In 2011, Lynne Sneddon wrote a paper where she describes an experiment that demonstrates pain in fish. She confined a group of zebrafish in this contraption she called a ‘maze’. On one end of the maze was a tank enriched with gravel, plants, and a window to a neighboring tank with other zebrafish- a minimal fish playground. On the other end of the maze was a completely barren tank. With this setup, she did 3 tests. In...

Well..this place is very nice to go swimming, play tennis, go skating and have barbeques BUT the downside is the public restroom and lack of landscaping. There are no flowers planted anywhere and the bathroom needs a serious renovation. The bathroom had toilet paper BUT NO RUNNING WATER AT THE SINK!! That's a HUGE public health hazard. The toilet paper is also not kept in the holder..so everyone that uses the restroom is touching the entire roll of toilet tissue. This place can be a much better atmosphere with a sanitized, and renovated bathroom along with flowers planted throughout. Also..there should be many garbage receptacles throughout the park. There are some but not many.. especially if you are fishing..there are no garbage cans! The lawns are mowered..but needs to be more often..High grassy areas are not welcoming. Please fix this place up..I enjoy coming here..but my family and I have been going to other parks due to the issues...

Lovely place to visit! Beware, if you Uber to it using the address on the website you will be taken to the wrong place! My daughter and I got dropped off in Anicosta Park. We had to order a second Uber and then make our way into a sketchy neighborhood adjacent to the park to get picked up by another driver. Thank goodness the people we asked for directions were upstanding citizens who did not take advantage of our situation. The second Uber driver commented once we got to his car, "What are the two of you doing walking around in this neighborhood!" The park is big and it was hot! Be sure to bring a beverage with you. I plan on someday returning here during the Water...